Don Quixote tilting against windmills on the long-suffering Rosinante,
trying to save damsels in distress from imaginary ogres; or me jousting
with an exclusive environment on my battered wheelchair to try and give
people with disabilities a fighting chance. Who is crazier?

Saturday, 11 March 2017

I just read this heart rending plea http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/when-compassion-isnt-enough/ from a quadriplegic that our society make it possible for her to get out of her room, cross the street to join her friends for a meal in a restaurant, use her qualifications and earn a reasonable living, ... I tell you ; I am getting sick of this society where one has to beg for what is considered common courtesy, nay a fundamental human right, and of a government which continues to do nothing, but nevertheless keeps passing toothless laws and empty promises. How many countries will have the gall to sentence a wheelchair-using professor for having been a Maoist sympathiser without producing anything remotely like serious evidence? Maybe it is time for all of us to emulate his example and stop begging for scraps from a plate that should be our right, and start demanding it more aggressively.

And with the recent `de-monetisation' exercise, you have to keep withdrawing money from the ATMs or cash counters of banks which are all equally inaccessible for a wheelchair user. People like Satendra Singh keep fighting for empathy and accessibility, in spite of repeatedly being fed lies when they file RTIs, and still keep up the fight!

In my fury, I thought of Bob Marley, and turned on a video of his classic song `Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your right, Don't give up the fight'. The energy and conviction he puts into what could well be `our song', is all the motivation `our warriors' might need in their ongoing fight with an unyielding establishment. Though it is still time away, I would like to propose the following strategy. I learnt during a discussion with friends on our contentious RPD Bill of 2016 that all public buildings have been given time till Dec. 28th, 2018 to render themselves accessible. Let us give due warning to our `Divyangjan' ministries that we shall send them photographs (with a timeline of Dec. 28, 2018) of such notoriously inaccessible places as Vigyan Sadan and New Delhi Railway Station and promptly institute legal action. Had my late mother been around then, that would have been her 99th birthday. She had always ben a great source of encouragement, even actively encouraging me to get myself a motorised wheelchair (hard as it must have been for a mother to see her youngest son's reduced state of mobility). I promise to take this battle right up to our mantri-log.

About Me

I am a professor of mathematics at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai (India). I have been increasingly mobility challenged of late due to the onset of a neurological condition known as multiple sclerosis; and perforce, I have had to notice the different ways that society excludes people like me, not deliberately, but for want of consciously thinking of the need for a more inclusive and accessible society.
Most of the posts here are a reproduction of articles from a column called `Different Strokes for Different Folks' which I wrote in the Times of India for a little more than a year from August 2011 until the powers that be decided that there were more pressing matters to be discussed on their pages.
I've written a bit more in the post 'Genesis of the Blog', which explains how this blog came into being.